Dallas Cowboys vs. Arizona Cardinals: Injury News, Matchups & Players To Watch | NFL Week 9 Preview

Dallas Cowboys vs. Arizona Cardinals: Injury News, Matchups & Players To Watch | NFL Week 9 Preview

before our final preview of the Cowboys and the Cardinals Monday Night Football matchup coming up later this evening. Like the video if you want the Cowboys to beat the Cardinals. [Music] Week nine, Monday Night Football, the final game of this week and the final game before the NFL trade deadline. A lot going on here actually. Uh, of note, you know, background info. We are filming this on Friday evening. So, there will be updates uh to the injuries. We’ll get to here in a little bit. Line is changing. Cowboys are three and a half points now instead of two and a half for a reason. We’ll get to here in a little bit. Injuries to watch. We’ll keep an eye on Juan Thomas. I think there’s a chance he’s able to go with the migraine stuff. I anticipate Cooper BB being activated to the 53man roster. Elijah Clark, Jack Sandborn, Donovan Wilson. Maybe Donno’s got a chance, but if I had to guess, I I would be a little bit surprised if he were able to go. The Cardinals sounds like they’re all mostly healthy. All these guys were limited to begin the week of practice. Good chance Walter Nolan makes his return. Uh Kathan Crawford, Amari Democado back. I don’t know anymore if Kyler Murray is going to play. He’s been at practice. He’s been limited. But despite the head coach Jonathan Ganon saying earlier this week, you know, we anticipate, expect, you know, whatever Kyler Murray to start, Jacobe Brassette has actually gotten more of the work with the ones going into the Saturday Sunday practices. Um, so we’ll keep an eye on that one. But certainly sounds like there is a very real possibility it is Jacobe Brassette, not Kyler Murray who starts. So when we get to our matchups to watch, we’ll mention how both quarterbacks fit into it. First up is Dak Prescott against the Arizona Cardinals pass defense. And I think this is an advantage that does favor your Dallas Cowboys. As bad as last week was, disappointing whatever defense has bigger issues. We all know it. Uh he’s been really good this year. You know, outside of guys like, you know, maybe a Drake May, a Sam Darnold, Nick Mahomes in the category, maybe Jordan Love if you love EPA because they’re so they’re so explosive. Um, not many quarterbacks playing at the same level or higher than what Dak Prescott is. He’s certainly in that tier A category so far this year. Cardinals pass defense, it’s okay. Uh, sixth in pass rate face. Remember, they’ve some of the rate stats are better to be used here because the per game stats, they’ve already had their buy, but they’re 19th in yards per game, 11th in yards per play, 21st in EPA per play, 28th in success rate allowed. They haven’t actually been that great there. and they don’t get pressures or get sacks. 22 uh% as the or 22nd there as a pressure rate uh with 32% and then 28th in sack rate. So that should favor the Dallas Cowboys. Couple other nextgen stats notes I want to mention for you guys here. Cardinals love split safety looks. So they got two deep safeties. 51.7% that is the fourth highest rate in the NFL. Uh Dak has done very well against split safety looks. actually been better against cover one cuz that leads to some of the bombs to pick and stuff. Um, Cardinals play cover four at the fourth highest rate in the NFL. Uh, they’re doing it 32% time, which makes sense. If you’re going to do a lot of split safety coverages, you’re going to have a lot of cover four as part of that. Uh, they’ve allowed 6.7 yards per attempt and 61% completion percentage near the league average on those plays. But Dak against cover four is completing 74.3% of his passes, averaging 8.6 yards per attempt. So, they’re both top 10 in their metrics there. So, a bit of some strengths there, but that’s eighth highest completion rate and seventh most yards per attempt uh against the cover four looks in particular. So, what is your confidence level in the Cowboys beating the Arizona Cardinals? Scale it for me from 1 to 10. One on the low end, 10 on the high end. Go vote in the comments of today’s show. Matchup to watch number two, man versus zone. depending on which quarterback is out there. Um, now my get my guess is the Cowboys probably were thinking it was going to be Kyler Murray. They’ve got time to adjust. It’s not the end of the world there. Um, Kyler Murray has not been very good against man coverage this year, completing 52% of his passes for 4.1 yards per attempt compared to 71% of his passes for 6.3 yards per attempt. So, advantage very much in favor of um the the man side of things if you want to deploy that. don’t have the scramble stats, but in theory there’s some he hasn’t scrambled as much. There’s some decent running numbers there. Jacobe Brassette, meanwhile, has been better against man coverage, completing 68.4% of his passes, nine yards per attempt compared to 6.9. One TD, zero interceptions against three TDs, one interception. Very different levels there. I don’t know. I keep seeing this Cowboys team stuck in zone coverage. I would just ride with man no matter what. So, will the Cowboys run more man coverage against Arizona? Or is Flu going to be a stubborn old man? Why for yes, N for no? Let me know in the comments of today’s show. Number three, 11 personnel against Dime and the Cardinals. A lot of teams you’ll see, okay, it’s 11 personnel. We’re going to match with nickel. They’re they’re going to stay level in that area because of some, you know, offball linebacker personnel concerns. Uh the Cardinals don’t do that. The Cowboys run 11 personnel with 65.2% of the snaps this season. They were higher in previous years. They’ve been more multiple this time around. It is still above average. And they average 6.8 yards per play, the fourth most in the NFL. The Cardinals will typically match 11 personnel with dime. That’s six defensive backs. They use a big dime package. Uh they’ll put Jaylen Thompson in the nickel and then uh bring down uh Taylor as an extra safety. Essentially, the Cardinals uh will do that. They at second highest rate 40.6% allowing 6.2 yards per per play. It’s actually below league average though. And my my question is for the Cowboys when that personnel package comes out. Do they try to establish the run? Because that would be if you can do it against the team that’s done a good job stopping the run on the interior. Inside runs would help. Now today’s show is made possible by Ethos. As a father of two kids, it’s not fun to think about what would happen if something happened, but you have to be prepared. Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get your free quote at ethos.comflaily. That’s ethos.comnl. Ethos is a trustworthy company at disrupts the traditional life insurance industry. And as of March 2025, business insider named Ethos the number one no medical exam instant life insurance provider. They’re an online platform that makes getting life insurance fast and easy to protect your family’s future in minutes, not months. There is no complicated process and it’s 100% online. No medical exam is required. You just answer a few health questions and get a quote in as little as 10 minutes. 3 million families have completed their applications and trusted Ethos to help find the right coverage for them. Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get your free quote at ethos.com/nflaily. That’s ethos.com/nflaily. Application times may vary and rates may vary. links in the comments and the description of today’s show. Match up to watch the fourth. Uh this is just the Cowboys defense in general against Trey McBride and Marvin Harrison Jr. McBride I think is one of the best tight ends in the NFL. He is one of their go-to players on third down. When it is third down, they look his way at one of the highest rates in the entire National Football League. Marvin Harrison for a little bit kind of looked like he had some of the yips uh that first half of the Seahawks game. He just he did several drops. He looked very confus he just didn’t look comfortable. Looked like he was not on the same page at all with Kyler Murray. He did close that half pretty well since then. Had a 98 yard game against the Titans but has only caught four passes over the past two games. This is probably a game he feels like is a getright game. Finally, it is the Cowboys deep coverage against whoever the heck the Arizona quarterback is in this one. And we’ll go over both players, by the way. So, the Cowboys, we’ve mentioned this before, are the worst at everything, but especially deep ball coverage. Uh almost all of these numbers are either last or dead last in the NFL. They are allowing the 20 plus area throws at a 54.5% conversion rate. Uh 673 yards, 84.1 yards per game or 20 yards per attempt. Nine touchdowns, one interception. The EPA per play is plus one and a half on every drop back. By the way, pressure rate is 36.4. That’s top 20. So at least you got that going for you. Um but you drop back, you’re just gaining a point and a half. Like obviously deep balls have the chance to be more impactful plays in general because you’re potentially getting chunk plays and touchdowns, but like the MVP will be like at plus.35 MVP EPA. This is like four times that, five times that. It’s absurd. Kyler Murray hasn’t been good here. Five of 12 all season among the 34, I believe, qualifying quarterbacks. Um 27th and 32nd on completion attempts. is seventh in completion percentage, which again, 41.7 is seventh and you’re allowing 54.5. Uh 167 yards is 28th. Uh eighth in EP in yards per attempt, but one touchdown, no interceptions, plus.7 EPA per play is sixth. Pressure rate is is tied for 10th. He hasn’t really pushed it downfield at all really beyond 10 plus yards. By the way, on throws beyond 10 plus yards, uh the Cowboys have allowed 1,16 yards and 13 touchdowns, which are also the worst in the NFL because because you know they suck. They suck that. I mean, there’s no way around it. He’s completing 30th ranked percentile there, 42.4, just 30th among NFL QBs. Low on yards, low in yards per attempt, you know, one touchdown, two interceptions, EPA’s average. Kyler honestly hasn’t been very good this year. Now, on the flip side, if it’s Jacobe Brassette playing for the Arizona Cardinals, five of 10, 50%, 157 yards on deep balls, he actually doesn’t have enough qualifying attempts on NextGen stats that to include him in there, but you can compare with Kyler and you go, okay, well, was completing a better completion rate than what Kyler Murray is on deep passes. He’s actually got almost as many yards, although it is on one fewer attempt. Uh, he’s got a better yard, actually a lower, sorry, better yards per attempt. My bad, I got the wrong number there. Uh, no touchdowns, no receptions. His EPA play is is crazy high. Um, it’s actually totally PM, my bad. Uh, 60% pressure rate. He has been much better. That’s pure EPA there. And also good on the on the 10 to 19 yard throws. Um, he’s just been a little bit better across the board for whatever reason on on this stuff. He has been a little bit more dialed in than than what Kyler Murray has been. And that’s something that I think we should not overlook. And I would almost wonder if like you can make an argument that Brassette is the better quarterback than Kyler Murray is right now. But we’ll we’ll ask this as if it’s Kyler Murray because it looks like it’s a really cool graphic. Uh DP for Dak Prescott. KM for Kyler Murray. I think it’s obviously Dak. I think it’s always been Dak. And I think frankly the the Kyler love is I think just not very fair to like what he’s been over the course of his NFL career. knowing that if he plays he’s going to light the Cowboys up. Number five player to watch Cowboys offensive line uh just as a unit cuz this is the Clayton Adams revenge game by the way. He left Arizona to come to Dallas. I don’t know if that’s much of a revenge but uh I do anticipate the starting five offense line back in there. We’ll leave it as such just in case something weird happens. But I think the starting five will be back out there. I’d like to see some better volleyball. Haven’t seen enough of that consistently the past couple of weeks. Number four is Don Bland. And I don’t I don’t think he’s been, you know, compared to the other corners, looks like the best player in football. The rest of the NFL, not so much. Um, of notes, good numbers here from NFL’s NextGen stats. This is based on closest defender, so could be off if there’s a bad miscommunication, but coverage just total EPA and and I’ll I’ll mention some of the ranks here. Uh, Don Bland is minus 8.8, which is good. You want to be negative on EPA play allowed. you’re giving points to your defense. It’s actually 12th among qualifying defensive backs. Triquz Bridges is plus 6.2. Ready Stewart is plus 6.7. Ka Elum is 17.9. So over the course of the season when targeting Ka Elum, opposing teams generating over 17 points per 17 points this season. And that includes like you bring up a third down pass and you get you get stuff back. Yeah, it’s bland and a bunch of bums, but let’s just call it what it is. and we’ll be live for our Monday night watch party against the Cowboys and the for the Cowboys against the Cardinals. Do not miss out. Hit that sub button for me right now. Number three player to watch, Osa Odigi Zooa, the defensive tackle. I do think that the just the lack of having Micah Parsons out there has been a negative for OSA. The pressure, the pass rush win rate, the underlying metrics, they’re not that bad, but they’re not as good as they were last year. And you also paid him so you have higher expectations. I don’t think he’s never been a great run defender. The whole I think the whole point of it was like OSA was was worth paying is what you paid him at when you had a dude alongside of him giving him more advantageous matchups and you saw growth. You got rid of that guy and now it hasn’t been the same. But I paid you. So I need him to start being better against Arizona. if he does not start making more of an impact, you really start to wonder like, okay, now what do you have going into next season at defensive tackle? Number two is CD Lamb. A little rusty last week. Not his best performance. The I’m not going to read too much into it cuz like the game was over like with the miscommunication and I think it was just kind of they was plenty of frustration from an offense that’s like we don’t have our best stuff and even if we did, we would have lost. Uh I think Lamb could be in for a big game. I I do like a lot of what I’ve seen from from Will Johnson. I would like to get Lamb in the nickel and have him feast a little bit. Like how do the Cardinals try to cover that? This I think this could be a big-time CD Lamb game. Get the ball to your playmakers. Let Lamb and Pickins feast. Like it doesn’t have to be an either or thing. I don’t know why people try to make it out that way. They can both have big time games. Who scores the first touchdown for the Cowboys? Let me know in the comments section of today’s show. Next up is Jake Ferguson. I’ll be honest, I don’t know how he got blanked uh against the Broncos last week. That the game plan in general, just like not attacking the middle of the field with the Broncos down their best linebacker was really weird to me. But you know what, it’s in the past there. Uh I expect Ferguson to get going again. I would like to see more after the catch and downfield stuff. He has been mostly reliable, but 51 catches for only 334 yards and being a good red zone guy is not it. I I want another step forward out of Fergie. [Music]

Dallas Cowboys vs. Arizona Cardinals NFL Week 9 preview for Monday Night Football! Cowboys Report host Tom Downey breaks down the Cowboys injury report, top matchups and players to watch when the Cowboys host the Cardinals on MNF. Cowboys injury news focuses on the absences of Donovan Wilson, but also the likely returns of Cooper Beebe and Juanyeh Thomas. We’ve got the Cowboys vs. Cardinals preview, as Jacoby Brissett will start at QB!

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Cowboys injury report and game designations for NFL Week 9 vs. the Cardinals:
– Alijah Clark, Ribs: Out
– Jack Sanborn, Groin: Out
– Donovan Wilson, Elbow/Shoulder: Out
– Cooper Beebe, Ankle (IR): Questionable (Expected to be activated)
– Ajani Cornelius, Knees: Questionable
– Juanyeh Thomas, Migraine: Questionable

Massive Cowboys news that was confirmed after filming: Jacoby Brissett, NOT Kyler Murray, will start at QB. Here is the Cardinals injury report, with the questionable players expected to still play:
LB BJ Ojulari (Knee) – Out
DL Walter Nolen III (Calf) – Questionable
CB Garrett Williams (Knee) – Questionable
QB Kyler Murray (Foot) – Questionable
CB Will Johnson (Groin) – Questionable
S Kitan Crawford (Ankle) – Questionable

Cowboys vs. Cardinals matchups to watch:
#1 – Dak Prescott vs. Cardinals Pass D
#2 – Man/Zone vs. Kyler Murray
#3 – 11 Personnel vs. Dime
#4: Trey McBride/Marvin Harrison vs. Cowboys D
#5: Kyler Murray vs. Deep Coverage

Get in the comments and reply to today’s questions on this edition of the Cowboys Report:
– Confidence level in the Cowboys beating the Cardinals? Scale it: 1-10
– Will the Cowboys run more man coverage? Type ‘Y’ for Yes, ‘N’ for No
– Better QB? Type ‘DP’ for Dak Prescott or ‘KM’ for Kyler Murray
– Who scores the first TD for the Cowboys?

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Cowboys players to watch against the Cardinals:
#5: Cowboys Offensive Line
#4: DaRon Bland (CB)
#3: Osa Odighizuwa (DT)
#2: CeeDee Lamb (WR)
#1: Jake Ferguson (TE)

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Cowboys Free Agency Tracker:
– Re-signed Osa Odighizuwa: 4-years, $80 MM
– Re-signed CJ Goodwin: 1-year, $1.20 MM
– Re-signed Juanyeh Thomas: 1-year, ERFA Tender
– Re-signed Brock Hoffman: 1-year, ERFA Tender
– Re-signed Markquese Bell: 3-years, $9 MM
– Re-signed Trent Sieg: 3-years, $4.45 MM
– Re-signed Kavontae Turpin, 3-years, $13.5 MM
– Signed Javonte Williams: 1-year, $3 MM
– Signed Robert Jones: 1-year, $3.75 MM
– Signed Solomon Thomas: 2-years, $6 MM
– Signed Payton Turner: 1-year, $3 MM
– Re-signed Bryan Anger: 2-years, $6.4 MM
– Trade: Kaiir Elam
– Signed Jack Sanborn: 1-year, $1.5 MM
– Trade: Kenneth Murray
– Signed Miles Sanders: 1-year, $1.34 MM
– Signed Dante Fowler: 1-year, $6 MM
– Signed Parris Campbell: 1-year, $1.20 MM
– Trade: Joe Milton III
– Signed Saahdiq Charles: 1-year, $1.17 MM (No GTD)
– Signed Hakeem Adeniji: 1-year, $1.17 MM (No GTD)
– Trade: George Pickens

Cowboys vs. Cardinals where to watch | NFL Week 9 MNF
Spread: Cowboys -3.5
Total (O/U): 53.5
Time / Date: 8:15p ET | Monday, November 3rd, 2025
Location: AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas
TV: ESPN/ABC

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Check out these recent Dallas Cowboys YouTube videos:
– Cowboys Rumors On Nick Herbig, Trey Hendrickson, Roquan Smith Trades + Sign Stephon Gilmore? | Q&A – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOx434p_1rM
– JUST IN: Cowboys Trade Rumors & Intel From NFL Insiders Adam Schefter, Ian Rapoport & Dianna Russini – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpTi9EU018g
– 🚨 CONFIRMED: Cowboys Making MAJOR Changes Before MNF vs. Cardinals – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFfHGFGNpZM

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